GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
There's a lot going on up there! Besides the obvious, that is. Secondary and tertiary lows, jets of moisture and, even, dry air... The upshot is we'll continue to see snow today, but when and how much will vary depending on where you are—at the moment it looks like things will be tapering off to the south, with a lull followed by more snow to the north. High around freezing, low in the low 20s. Flaps up! It's hard to capture a bird at the moment it's landing, wings spread wide, grace (usually) personified. But here are two:
In Plainfield, Chris Rollins got this chickadee as it was coming in to check out the buffet in his hand.
And in Bow, NH, Reddit user bchmann24 got this exquisite blue jay just as it was touching down.
Dartmouth credits pre-arrival testing for relatively low numbers as students return. As in the fall, all students headed for campus received home test kits. This time around, however, about four times as many students tested positive and delayed their travel, reports WCAX's Adam Sullivan. “What that says to me is our prearrival testing did exactly what we wanted it to," says Dr. Lisa Adams, who co-chairs the college's Covid response team. "It identified students before they traveled, before they returned to the Upper Valley.”
A different Dartmouth safety measure, on the other hand, has some locals miffed. The college has two ice skating rinks set up on the Green, but they're only for students, faculty, and staff who are okayed to be on campus and are participating in the on-campus Covid testing program. It's part of a joint effort with Hanover to keep town and gown separate. Still, reports the Valley News's Liz Sauchelli, that has disappointed community members looking for a handy way to spend time outdoors—especially since Occom Pond is closed to skating as the college renovates the Dartmouth Outing Club.Once the snow gets cleared away again, though... In case you haven't had a chance yet to check out the skating trail on Mascoma Lake (new this year, thanks to the volunteers of the Mascoma Lake Skating Association), drone guy William Daugherty was out there on Sunday getting a swooping bird's eye view. And if you were one of those skaters? That was a day, huh?SPONSORED: Crossroad Farm's CSA is now open for the 2021 season. Farm Shares are available through discounted, pre-purchased credit. Sign up now to take advantage of the early 7% discount. Shares can be redeemed at the farm in Post Mills and at the Norwich farmstand. Shares don't expire and can be used to purchase everything Crossroad carries, including hanging baskets, vegetable starts, fresh fruits and vegetables, and a wide assortment of products from other local farms. Also hiring for the farm and farm stands: Click here to learn more and apply. Sponsored by Crossroad Farm.White-winged crossbills, bear claw marks, and ice falls. It's the first week of February—and, writes Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast, winter's midpoint tomorrow at 4:49 pm (sez the Farmers Almanac). Out in the woods there's ice seeping from rock outcroppings, coyotes in their winter fur, crossbills venturing south, how to tell which claw marks on a tree were the bear's front claws and which the hind, why a stone wall is a good spot for a game camera, and how the paper birch's white outer bark protects it in winter.How do fire departments put out an electric-car fire? Lots of water. Which seems counter-intuitive, David Brooks writes in his Monitor column, until you remember that batteries use direct current, and it's alternating current that's the more problematic in water. Brooks got curious about how fire departments in NH are prepping for rising use of battery storage in cars and buildings. The danger with batteries is they can explode, so departments have to learn where they are in each vehicle they might encounter. Easier with houses—but there's the challenge of attacking a fire through a roof with solar panels.This time, proposal for independent redistricting commission in NH may not make it out of the legislature. The past two years, when Democrats controlled both houses, a bipartisan move to hand districting to a commission passed the legislature but was vetoed by Gov. Chris Sununu. Now, however, the Senate committee hearing the measure has recommended against it on a 3-2 party-line vote, signaling that its prospects in the full Senate are dim, reports InDepthNH's Garry Rayno. There's a similar bill before the House.NH House committee wants to let legislative panel overturn state health department emergency orders. The Health and Human Services Committee voted 19-2 yesterday to move ahead with a bill sponsored by Wolfeboro Republican William Marsh to give a special legislative panel the right, by 2/3 vote, to undo any emergency order issued by the health commissioner's office. One supporter of the bill cited a decision last spring to ban hydroxychloroquine as "politically motivated," reports NHPR's Josh Rogers, though Marsh says he's concerned that emergency orders can currently supersede state law. VT labor department commits second personal data breach in less than a year. Commissioner Michael Harrington said yesterday that some of the tax forms it mailed last Friday to 180,000 unemployment insurance recipients contained the wrong person's name, address, or Social Security number. The mistake echoes one last spring, notes VTDigger's Anne Wallace Allen, in which the department mailed employers information about claimants who did not actually work for them. That time, it waited over a month to break the news. This time, it's issuing new tax forms right away.“Everyone in Vermont wanted air conditioning at the same time.” To the list of pandemic silver-lining businesses (ski and bike shops, snowmobile dealers, home-improvement retailers...) you can add HVAC installers. People working at home in the summer suddenly discovered they needed air conditioning, reports VTDigger's Ellie French. And schools, businesses in older buildings, and landlords concerned about air flow invested in more effective ventilation systems. Things have slowed down a bit...but summer's on its way again."It's almost like a military presence trying to cross into Canada." It's probably been a while since you've been near the border, but Shawn Dumas crosses it several times a week. The Swanton, VT-based trucker for Bellavance Trucking talks to VPR's Henry Epp about what it's been like. The scrutiny—"they're having us get out of our trucks, at certain points rummaging through our vehicles"—is more intense northbound, he says. Same with questions about Covid exposure: "Now that it's spread across the globe, the U.S. side's not asking as much."Feel like a little road trip? Two yearly outdoor attractions in NH's Lakes Region are getting ready to start: pond racing in Moultonborough and planes landing on Lake Winnipesaukee's Alton Bay. The first, writes the Laconia Daily Sun's Adam Drapcho, mostly pits drivers "piloting cars that would otherwise be sent to the scrapyard" against one another. "They take the glass out, install roll cages and a fire suppression system, put chains on the tires and see who’s the fastest." The Alton Bay landing strip is the only public ice runway in the Lower 48 and can see as many as 100 planes come and go in a day. Time-sink alert! The annual Elden Murray photography exhibition and competition, sponsored by the Howe and organized by the Quechee Area Camera Club, had its (virtual) opening reception on Sunday and the photographs are now all online. The rules may limit entries to amateur photographers, but in this case "amateur" has nothing to do with quality: There's amazing work in there. Lots of scenery, animals, and people from around the region, but also lots from far afield. Don't say I didn't warn you.
So...
In case you want to keep track, the CDC has just gone live with a map tracking the known cases in the US of the three emerging coronavirus variants that have the world on edge: B.1.1.7 (the one known as the UK variant); the B.1.351 variant first seen in South Africa; and the P.1 variant first seen in Brazil. At the moment, there are cases of B.1.1.7 in NY, MA, and CT, but none reported so far in VT, NH, or ME. Note that the CDC says their numbers are based on sampling, and so "do not represent the total number" of cases that may be arising.
Dartmouth reports 10 active cases among students and 7 among faculty and staff. In the meantime, 19 students and 5 faculty/staff are in quarantine because of travel or exposure, while 10 students and 25 faculty/staff are in isolation awaiting results or because they tested positive.
Colby-Sawyer reports 3 active cases among students and 1 faculty/staff case. Meanwhile, 7 people are quarantining on campus and 3 are in isolation.
NH reported 364 new cases yesterday for a cumulative total of 66,058. There were 2 new deaths, bringing the total to 1,059. Meanwhile, 193 people are hospitalized (down 7). The current active caseload stands at 4,662 (down 224). The state now reports 208 active cases in Grafton County (down 2), 178 in Sullivan (down 4), and 389 in Merrimack (down 7). Town by town, the state says that Claremont has 79 active cases (down 3), Unity has 35 (no change), Newport has 26 (up 1), Hanover has 14 (up 1), Lebanon has 12 (up 1), Charlestown has 10 (no change), Enfield has 9 (down 2), New London has 8 (down 1), Sunapee has 8 (down 1), Grantham has 6 (down 2), Haverhill has 6 (up 1), Plainfield has 5 (no change), and Rumney has 5 (up at least 1). Warren, Wentworth, Dorchester, Canaan, Grafton, Springfield, Wilmot, Croydon, and Newbury all have 1-4.
VT reported 113 new cases yesterday, bringing it to a total case count of 12,083. There was 1 new death, which now number 175 all told, while 60 people with confirmed cases are hospitalized (down 3). Windsor County gained 9 new cases to stand at 862 for the pandemic (with 132 over the past 14 days). Orange County had 4 new cases and is now at 428 cumulatively (with 36 cases over the past 14 days).
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This evening at 6, the Lebanon Opera House continues its "LOH On Location" series with Oshima Brothers, performing live from Portland, ME. Sean and Jamie Oshima grew up in Whitefield, ME surrounded by what they describe as "a crazy number of instruments." Sean jokes that they became a band in 1997, "when Jamie was born," but they developed their taste for folk, acoustic pop, and Americana as they were growing up and officially launched in 2015. Free, but you'll need to register.
Also at 6 pm, Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine launches a three-part public series of webinars on the Covid-19 vaccines. Moderated by former Dartmouth board chair and health policy expert Susan Dentzer, tonight's presentation on "COVID-19 Vaccine Communication, Misinformation, and Fear" will feature infectious disease expert Dr. Elizabeth Talbot; Tuck School social marketing expert Punam Keller; Houston-based Dr. Gregory Johnson, an expert in racial disparities in medicine; and Tuck School prof of business administration Lindsey Leininger, who specializes in data-driven public health policy. Free, but you'll need to register.
At 7 pm, Vermont Humanities presents Meg Mott, Marlboro VT-based politics prof at Emerson College, talking about "Why Does Robust Dialogue Matter?" Mott, whose open-minded and accessible approach to talking about the Constitution has won her admirers around the state, will look at both the theory and cognitive science of public deliberation, which argue that robust deliberation is healthy for democracy—and will talk about what we might be losing as the pandemic shuts down in-person town meetings. Online, but space is limited.
Also at 7, Phoenix Books is hosting members of the editorial team behind the new Vermont Almanac—a year’s worth of stories, data, illustrations, and photography about everything from the weather to how the rural economy is changing to advice on how to prune apple trees or cherry-pick logs. Virginia Barlow, Dave Mance III, and Patrick White will talk about how it all came together. Free, but... you know the drill.
All this week it's "Hot Chocolate Week" in VT, an effort organized by the Vermont Fresh Network to bring some foot traffic back into stores, restaurants, and other spots. Locally, Billings Farm, Hartland's Cedar Mountain Farm, Brookfield's Fat Toad Farm, the King Arthur café, Norwich's MOCO and Norwich Farm Creamery, Piermont's Robie Farm, Quechee's Skinny Pancake, and WRJ's White River Food Coop are participating.
And finally, this week CATV is highlighting... well, a mix of programs, from an AVA Mudroom event with stories about life and death to a VT-based panel on reparations for MLKJr. Day to an interview with Montshire Museum director Marcos Stafne about his creative journey.
I threw a snowball across the backyard.My dog ran after it to bring it back.It broke as it fell, scattering snow over snow.She stood confused, seeing and smelling nothing.She searched in widening circles until I called her.
She looked at me and said as clearly in silenceas if she had spoken,I know it’s here, I’ll find it,went back to the center and started the circles again.
I called her two more times before she cameslowly, stopping once to look back.
That was this morning. I’m sure she’s forgotten.I’ve had some trouble putting it out of my mind.
— "Listen," by
.
See you tomorrow.
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